China’s adaptation governance in a world of carbon neutrality

China has mainly relied on plans and policies to deal with adaptation challenges while climate legislation at the national level encounters with series of hurdles. Adaptation and environmental law are deeply entangled with each other, and a sustainable adaptation response entails current environmental law to reform for better adaptation regulation. This article reveals that China’s environmental law faces some legal challenges of applying its rules, especially tort rules, to distribute climate-induced loss and damages. Nonetheless, a possible solution to facilitate a better or more aggressive adaptation regulation would be establishing the linkage between loss and damage with climate change, mainstreaming adaptation within extant legal instruments and turning to EIA-based climate litigation.